Up close and personal. Hairy.  Tubes.  Gourd-like forms.  This is actually two kinds of kelp tangled up in each other: the Bullwhip or Elkhorn Kelp (Pelagophycus porra) is the one with the bulbous thing and the hairy one is Feather-Boa Kelp (Egregia menziesii.)

Now,  don’t you feel ridiculously erudite and well-informed?  There is also a Giant Bladder Kelp that we see quite often.  It has leaf-like blades and is a common source of emulsifiers in many foods.  I wonder if I could find it listed on the ingredients label (as ‘alginates,’ possibly?)

Cool stuff.  We have a book called Life Between the Tides that helps me out with this sort of thing.